Everyone is backtracking on analog shutoff

[thathoustonradiogeek]

Well, for those who is wondering if any of the stations in the US territories will go digital, we can tell you that at approximately 1:59 PM Chamorro Standard Time on February 18, 2009 in Guam (11:59 PM North American Eastern Standard Time on February 17, 2009) KUAM (NBC), KGTF (PBS) and KTGM (ABC) will say bye-bye to analog. All three stations have been running scrollers on their stations saying that will go ahead and switch to digital. As for KUAM's LP sister (CBS) and KTGM's LP Fox sibling KEQI, they plan to make them available on their DT signals as well.

What about Puerto Rico?

Well, since you asked:

San Juan
WTCV

Naranjito
WECN

Fajardo
WORA
WRUA

Arecibo
WMEI

Mayaguez
WOST

Ponce
WSUR

As the US Virgin Islands, only WVXF will join the 2/17/09 DT switch fray.

So, Univisión's WORA in Mayagüez and WSUR in Ponce are turning off their analog signals, but not main station WLII in San Juan? (Actualy licensed to Caguas)

 

[TexasTom]

But let's say that someone launches a low power DTV on channel 21. As I understand the FCC's rules, that new station would need to map as 19.1, since there can't be two stations mapping to 21.1 in the same market. Problem solved? Well, not really -- because it still leaves the question of how viewers would be able to find the new station. If they just punch in 21.1 on their remote, they'll get KTXA-DT, not the new station. But if they punch in 19.1 they'll get either KTXA-DT or nothing at all -- unless they first do a full rescan on their tuner (or go into their tuner's sub-menus). So a new station under these circumstances can't just tell potential viewers to type in their channel number, but must instead tell viewers who might want to check out their programming that it isn't possible to do so without either doing a full rescan or else digging deeper into their television's menus than most viewers would ever want to do.

Viewers are going to have to rescan once in awhile if they want to receive new stations.

Bingo! That's exactly it -- either that or go into a somewhat complex and confusing (for non-techies) menu system, where their tuner has that option.

The end result is that it's going to be much more difficult for new stations to be discovered by OTA viewers. And that is something that potentially will put a new station at a substantial competitive disadvantage in markets with high levels of OTA viewing.

 

[Poledo]

Just a couple of weeks ago the local stations started a campaign to get the word out that OTA viewers would need to rescan on February 18th. That went on for a little over a week before the sky started falling. After they work all this out, I doubt stations will tell people they need to rescan unless the new station is a sub channel of an established station. That leaves newly licensed stations dependent on radio, newspaper, and billboard advertising to get the word out that they are on the air. Little LPTV's can't afford any of that.
Could we see more currently existing LPTV's "merging" with full power stations? The LPTV could get a spot as a digital sub channel, greatly increasing their coverage area, and the full power station would gain another source of programming for any extra spectrum they might be looking to fill. Has this happened anywhere yet (not counting LPTV's owned by full power stations.)

 

[w9wi]

a little over a week before the sky started falling. After they work all this out, I doubt stations will tell people they need to rescan unless the new station is a sub channel of an established station. That leaves newly licensed stations dependent on radio, newspaper, and billboard advertising to get the word out that they are on the air. Little LPTV's can't afford any of that.

This doesn't differ much from the situation with analog.

You bought a new analog TV in Nashville; turn it on, and it asks you to scan the channels. It scans in channels 2/4/5/8/17/30/39/50/58/66. If you're watching channel 17 and you hit channel-up, it jumps to channel 30.

Now, a new LPTV comes on the air on channel 26.

If you're watching channel 17 and you hit channel-up, it's still going to jump to channel 30. If you're channel 26, you have to convince the viewers to rescan or they aren't going to see your station.

 

[vchimpanzee]

a little over a week before the sky started falling. After they work all this out, I doubt stations will tell people they need to rescan unless the new station is a sub channel of an established station. That leaves newly licensed stations dependent on radio, newspaper, and billboard advertising to get the word out that they are on the air. Little LPTV's can't afford any of that.

This doesn't differ much from the situation with analog.

You bought a new analog TV in Nashville; turn it on, and it asks you to scan the channels. It scans in channels 2/4/5/8/17/30/39/50/58/66. If you're watching channel 17 and you hit channel-up, it jumps to channel 30.

Now, a new LPTV comes on the air on channel 26.

If you're watching channel 17 and you hit channel-up, it's still going to jump to channel 30. If you're channel 26, you have to convince the viewers to rescan or they aren't going to see your station.

My analog TVs have the option to add channels. Why don't converter boxes do that? Considering that a lot of people will have to turn their antennas every which way, you need to be able to do that. Sure, you'd have to turn the antenna every time you changed channels, but the morons who mandated digital TV for all didn't see any point in making anyone's lives easy.

It's fortunate that I decided to get cable instead of cutting down trees and putting up a huge tower, because I can't figure out the antenna that I would use for the closer stations--which, by the way, aren't on cable. I guess I do benefit from them putting me in the market that has more distant stations, because when the cable works, which I hope is most of the time, I can pick up a lot more stations.

Now, if the antenna CAN pick up my closer stations, I'm pretty much set ...

 

[vchimpanzee]

In Greensboro/Winston-Salem/High Point ABC affiliate
WXLV (analog 45/digital 29) and MyNetwork affiliate
WMYV (analog 48/digital 33), both owned by Sinclair,
are making the changeover Tuesday as planned.

D-oh! There go my "Simpsons". Well, mainly because I can't figure out this new Ti-Vo. With the delay, I can always set it manually and it will tape. Without that, I'd have to give up "Roy's Folks".

Plus, last night, even though "America's Funniest Home Videos" was a rerun, I didn't know that or even that I had seen it.

WXLV was having a good night. Nevertheless, I may lose it and have to depend on the Charlotte station that takes every possible opportunity to pre-empt programs. But, oh, boy, if I get WXLV's digital signal ... WSOC won't see the likes of me again.

WMYV ought to work. The man told me this antenna will pick up Greensboro stations in my area. Rabbit ears sometimes give me an excellent signal. Now, how do I hook the thing up???

 

[vchimpanzee]

Virtual channels are only a problem to people like us who go out specifically searching for things. Most people will set up their box, scan it, and that's it. No more worrying about what channel anything is actually on, they just know that when they want channel 7, they go to 7-1 on their box.

- Trip

Nevertheless, I have to learn and remember new channel numbers. One would think I see "My 12" all the time, I think My 12. No, it'll take me a long time to forget about 55.

Great signal! I've never had that. And $7.95 a month! ;D Plus there are these channels with watchable signals for those of us used to snow.

Digital TV means better picture, better sound--because you're forced to get cable!

 

[vchimpanzee]

I'm still wondering about the folks on substandard cable systems such as mine. I went to Radio Shack over the weekend to begin MY conversion process. They have a 190 mile antenna for about $105.00. I'm tempted to do that, but it's probably like EPA ratings for gas mileage. Tell you 40, you get under 30.

190 mile antenna?? Do you have the catalog ID on that?? I haven't heard of any antenna that picks up signals from that distance yet! I think I'd get that with a money-back guarantee and keep my receipt!

I was in Radio Shack and the best thing they told me they had was a 50-mile outdoor antenna. The thing is, the man at Sears, which didn't sell outdoor antennas, told me he sold an indoor one to a person living near me and said that person could pick up the Greensboro stations. They've got to be about 50 miles away.

I decided against the outdoor antenna bvecause installation was so expensive. I was relying on the Sears man being right, plus the possibility of the delay, but I'm going to look around for a better price on installation and possibly a better antenna. I hope I get the time to do that. If I can get one that will pick up WXII, OH YEAH! DUFF MAN! And my NBC affiliate is toast. Except for "Jeopardy", because of the off chance the Greensboro station will pre-empt it, very liekly during March Madness. But using a converter box and an antenna for one channel ... I don't think so, Tim. Actually, I may need it for WXLV.

 

[vchimpanzee]

Cable companies serving 200 or fewer subscribers should have been forced to tell customers that such systems will probably not be ready, and to make suitable arrangements. I'm losing cable service next week, based on stations in my area. Area Radio Shacks and independent dealers are being inundated with customers, as 300 families are losing service in my area. I'm not looking forward to buying the antenna, tower, coax, converter box and so on, and putting everything up in a West Virginia winter.

This is the biggest argument in favor of waiting until June.

Good luck.

Forgot a couple of things. Yeah, the post after yours said satellite. I chose cable since they give me the option of only a few channels, though even 100 from Dish Network cots about the same right now.

And I was going to say maybe you can ask the Wizard for a good signal.

I know that my situation is somewhat rare, but will be replicated to the point that perhaps hundreds of thousands countrywide will be left in the digital darkness. I've complained to everyone from our county commissioners to local TV station general managers. I'm so desperate, I even e-mailed Oprah. ;D You'll never see a news story explaining the transition's BIG LIE-that cable customers will be safe. I'm hoping that after I put everything together that perhaps I'll get a TV station from thirty miles away-again, consider West Virginia's terrain. It ain't Kansas, and Dorothy ain't coming.

It has been a big public relations campaign that covered up all the problems.

I watch "Smallville", which is set in Kansas, so I could say Superman ain't coming.

On that show he sure isn't!

I'm fortunate that terrain probably won't be a problem.

 

[vchimpanzee]

Some of us are doing just fine the way things are now.

DTV wasn't done for you. It was done to free up significant portions of the analog TV spectrum for emergency communications (primarily) and auction off the remainder for cell phone usage (secondarily).

Sure, it's not like they couldn't come up with a better way to do that. Can't have the government messing up people's lives so people can enjoy their HD.

If I spend hundreds of dollars on an antenna and still don't get anything, I'm going to be mad. Which is why I haven't done it. I called the cable company and I'm going to put up my indoor antenna the day they come for the channels the cable company doesn't have. And I'd bETTER get them. Or else.

Hundreds of dollars for an antenna? You can get a very large VHF/UHF outdoor antenna in my town for around $50.

Uh-huh. Getting someone to install it is another matter. Although it's not like lightning will ever strike the thing, so there's no need to protect it, and even if there was such a possbility, it doesn't cost that much. Really. :

Indoor rabbit ears with a UHF loop are about $10.

Worth every penny for receiving a digital signal.

Or else? Or else....what? :

They're going to hear from me if I don't get my network shows because of some weather that's not affecting me or some stupid sports broadcast. Or if the cable goes out. As for the individual stations I might lose, I suppose I could check out movies from the library on DVD, but then they'd have all the profanity left in. It's ridculous to ruin the movie-going experience if some producer wants realism or because you want to increase your MPAA rating. Actually, finding movies quite by accident, and movies you can't see any other way, is one of the great things about over-the-air TV.

The decision to go digital was not made to support HD (see above). DTV is not the same as HD although most DTV stations will broadcast a HD signal (which is downconverted to SD/analog by the converter box). You still get a much clearer picture than with analog.

Who is this YOU? And HD would have never made it if not for the prospect of ending analog signals.

As far as digital cable/satellite tiers, you would pay an extra fee to receive HD programming as opposed to digital-only.

And the fee should have been used to support HD and the digital signals that made them possible.

 

[vchimpanzee]

The GM of one of the Kansas City stations was quoted as everyone needing to please President Obama.

If that's true, and I suspect it is, it's disturbing. We have a president, not a king, although you wouldn't know it from the fawning media.

Please Obama? Please. (No pun intended). All this does is please still-unprepared viewers who would otherwise lose their analog signals next Tuesday, as well as please stations who would otherwise be overwhelmed with calls from concerned viewers. Furthermore, stations can still opt to go digital only on 2/17, or anytime before 6/12.

Mccain doesn't care about the loittle guy. He wouldn't have done it. I'm glad we Obama watching out for us.

The second biggest argument in favor of a delay, one which supports an early cutoff for some, is the number of calls for help stations would get.

 

[wrsg915fm]

In response to my cable system being substandard, it is a very rural system with under 200 subs. It's not ever been upgraded. Windjammer, our latest owner, stated that it was 'dead last' in all of their holdings.

Anyway, we're going to get a tower, antenna, rotor, booster-the full monty, as soon as the backlog at dealerships ends. One person on my hill is going for a sat dish and antenna to the tune of several hundred dollars.

 

[ajc_trw]

a little over a week before the sky started falling. After they work all this out, I doubt stations will tell people they need to rescan unless the new station is a sub channel of an established station. That leaves newly licensed stations dependent on radio, newspaper, and billboard advertising to get the word out that they are on the air. Little LPTV's can't afford any of that.

This doesn't differ much from the situation with analog.

You bought a new analog TV in Nashville; turn it on, and it asks you to scan the channels. It scans in channels 2/4/5/8/17/30/39/50/58/66. If you're watching channel 17 and you hit channel-up, it jumps to channel 30.

Now, a new LPTV comes on the air on channel 26.

If you're watching channel 17 and you hit channel-up, it's still going to jump to channel 30. If you're channel 26, you have to convince the viewers to rescan or they aren't going to see your station.

My analog TVs have the option to add channels. Why don't converter boxes do that? Considering that a lot of people will have to turn their antennas every which way, you need to be able to do that. Sure, you'd have to turn the antenna every time you changed channels, but the morons who mandated digital TV for all didn't see any point in making anyone's lives easy.

You want the Zenith DTT901 with EZ add. This feature scans and adds to the channel list rather than reset it. I have this box as well as a Sylvania which, though it doesn't have the EZ add, lets me punch in the physical channel number and then add it to the list.

The EZ add and manual add with the Zenith is far easier than my Sylvania. With the Sylvania if I wanted to add Philadelphia WPHL 17 (DT54) and have Baltimore WNUV 54 (40) I have to remove NUV to punch in physical 54 over virtual 54 to get PHL then readd DT 40 to get 54-1 back.

Try punching in the physical number and try adding it in the channel list. It may work so give it a try.

 

[TexasTom]

a little over a week before the sky started falling. After they work all this out, I doubt stations will tell people they need to rescan unless the new station is a sub channel of an established station. That leaves newly licensed stations dependent on radio, newspaper, and billboard advertising to get the word out that they are on the air. Little LPTV's can't afford any of that.

This doesn't differ much from the situation with analog.

You bought a new analog TV in Nashville; turn it on, and it asks you to scan the channels. It scans in channels 2/4/5/8/17/30/39/50/58/66. If you're watching channel 17 and you hit channel-up, it jumps to channel 30.

Now, a new LPTV comes on the air on channel 26.

If you're watching channel 17 and you hit channel-up, it's still going to jump to channel 30. If you're channel 26, you have to convince the viewers to rescan or they aren't going to see your station.

Yes, it does differ. On an analog TV, you can just type in a 2 followed by a 6, hit enter, and you're on channel 26 -- without having to scan it in. If your television has an "add/delete" function (and most do), you can manually add channel 26 without doing a rescan.

Many digital tuners also have the option of manually adding or deleting channels -- but in the example that I gave, it would be very difficult to tell viewers how to manually enter the channel or manually add it. Because remember that the example that I gave was for a digital LP station that is occupying a channel that is the virtual channel for an existing fullpower. In this instance, any attempt to pull up the new LPTV without doing a full rescan (or using the manual "add/delete" menu) first will just give you the full powered station. Laying it out:
KTXA-DT is on channel 19 (it's final home, come June), but is virtual 21.1
KXYZ-LD is on channel 21, and is required to map to virtual 19.1
Unless you have first rescanned or manually reprogrammed your tuner, typing in either 19.1 or 21.1 on the remote will give you KTXA-DT.

 

[Tom Wells]

Somewhere in this mess is a pretty good comedy sketch in the same vein as Abbott and Costello's "Who's on First" bit.

 

[KyDXIn]

Somewhere in this mess is a pretty good comedy sketch in the same vein as Abbott and Costello's "Who's on First" bit.

Or an analog/digital debate in the vein of "Less fillin/Tastes great". Will anyone really switch back to analog to watch these LP stations?

 

[willcail]

For people who doesn't get that DTV and HDTV are not the same. Digital TV can broadcast resolutions from 480i (standard definition) to 1080i High Definition. Yes there are HDTV that displays a full 1080p. No OTA TV station have the bandwidth to broadcast in full 1080p HD.

Analog to Digital Converter Boxes are design for to decode the standard def signal of the OTA DTV signal for old NTSC picture tube TV's. Those converter boxes ignore/filter out any high definition broadcast information. Now if you have a HDTV that can display 720p and up to 1080p then the TV tuner will process the HD info up to 1080i.

Now I did notice living in Columbus Ohio nthat besides WTTE and WWHO, a low power OTA station sign off their signal as well. WDEM CA DT sign off their analog signal on 11:59PM EST on 02.17.2009. WDEM currently have 17.2-17.4 turned on. 17.2-17.4 is displaying color bars. There is a message on 17.1 explain that their are testing their digital signal. Don't know if WDEM is going to multicast? Their digital signal is ERP is 1.05KW, down from 10.5KW of their ERP of their analog signal. Very spotty to pick up. The picture is a lot better than the analog feed.

Now what I do I get the list of the post transition UHF channels of the OTA stations that broadcast in Columbus Ohio, then I direct input them and adjust the bow tie antenna accordingly. I don't want to mess with the channel scanner. It took me 10 12 times just to pick up all of the seven full power stations that broadcast in Columbus Ohio. The auto scanner is useless when it comes to scanning for the low power DTV stations. Since most of them are going to broadcast a very low ERP's.

BTW I did see an Free to Air generic Sat Dish Receiver, thats design to pick up non copy protected sat feeds. It does support 16:9 and 4:3 aspect ratios, full digital audio support and progressive video. Is this thing 100% legal?

 

[TexasTom]

Or an analog/digital debate in the vein of "Less fillin/Tastes great". Will anyone really switch back to analog to watch these LP stations?

Low power digital stations do exist.

 

[vchimpanzee]

I was so afraid after what I heard about digital TV that I delayed my upgrade several days.

I'll put the details of my experience on another site and provide a link here to that site. My name ther is Kyle-X-el.

In short, the two stations in my area that went digital that are not on cable had a Spanish-speaking guy explaining digital TV. I intentionally turned the program on later to see if it would be in English, and it was.

A lot of that information should have been in the special about digital TV that aired on nearly every station, where the cranky old man was finally convinced to switch. That program had almost n o information. There's a lot people need to know and it just hasn't been told to them.

I can pick up those two stations I mentioned, plus two others in the same market and even three that are on my cable system even with the antenna supposedly pointing the other way (plus I pick up extra channels from two of those, and one on each station is an all-weather channel--valuable to have during severe weather). Another station I should be able to pick up, since its tower is in the same general area as the others', gives me the dreaded "No Signal". I haven't checked into the situation but I'll call the station. It is on my cable system, though--the only one from that market.

I am concerned about why I have to turn the volume up past 30 to hear anything, when I usually had the volume set at half that. Plus it sounds like it is raining. I thought digital sound was suppoed to be perfect. Maybe this is a problem that can be solved. At least the picture is perfect.

If my cable goes out for any length of time, I am without NBC or CBS (or Ion, but I didn't pick up that station when it was analog). I have CW, My Network and two affiliates each for Fox and ABC.

My VCRs (which are part of the TV) which work which I can set the time for are hooked up to cable. One which is iffy is hooked up to the converter box. But merely turning on the TV gives me static on channel 3. I was told leaving the TV on the channel I wanted would allow the VCR to tape, but I'm afraid that won't work with digital. The VCR, even set to channel 3, would start taping and it would get static on channel 3. I'm pretty sure of that. At least I was warned I couldn't set the channel, first by a newspaper article and then by a man in the store. So hooking up TiVo comes next. At least I won't miss "The Simpsons" any more.

Believe it or not, that was the short version. I'll post a link to the long version and also repost all of the above on that other site.

 

[landtuna]

BTW I did see an Free to Air generic Sat Dish Receiver, thats design to pick up non copy protected sat feeds. It does support 16:9 and 4:3 aspect ratios, full digital audio support and progressive video. Is this thing 100% legal?

Yes it is but be aware that the FTA broadcasts are not like the OTA broadcasts you are accustomed to. Provided you can actually receive these FTA programs (you can "see" the satellites) you'll find a lot of them in foreign languages. Fine if you understand Farsi or Arabic. Not to fine if you are English-only speaking. Most FTA programming is coming from foreign countries so the broadcast hours are not optimum for US-receiving households.

If you are really interested in FTA viewing there is a ton of information at this web site:
http://www.satforums.com/